The Green Committee
Chair: Betsy Darr
Email: green@uusf.org
Meeting time: Fourth Monday of each month at 6PM
Mission
The Environmental Justice Working Group has two areas of concern: combating the causes of climate change and seeking alternative, sustainable ways to live, all through the lenses of racial, gender, and economic justice.
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Combating Climate Change: We track national, state, and local legislation and social policies in partnership with other organizations and alert congregants to opportunities to take action.
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Seeking Sustainability: We raise awareness of and encourage action around sustainble alternatives.
Members:
Betsy Darr, Chair, Larry Danos, Kathi Malone, Maric Munn, Merle Furlong, Margaret Pearce, Dolores Perez Heilbron, David Heilbron and Melvin Starks. (Contact us at green@uusf.org.)
Contact Us
Resources
Action Alerts: email green@uusf.org to ask to be added to the action alert list.
In 2015, the Green Committee organized the congregation’s first annual Climate Justice Month, as part of a larger Unitarian Universalist commitment to respond to global warming. Climate Justice Month runs from March 22nd, World Water Day, to April 22nd, Earth Day - a time to learn, reflect, and act on climate change and other pressing environmental concerns. At the same time, the group move its focus how environmental issues disproportionately affect people of color and poor communities, in the US and around the world.
Accomplishments
The Green Committe started in September 2010 to help the congregation become a UUA Green Sanctuary. By instituting composting and increasing recycling, the congregation both became kinder to our earth and saved more than $7,500 a year. The congregation affirmed our GREEN SANCTUARY COVENANT on October 31, 2011. For these things and more, UUSF received Green Sanctuary Certification on April 4, 2012.
Our church is getting getting 100% of its electricity from green sources! All of the electric power it doesn’t get from church solar panels, we are getting through Clean Power SF’s Super Green option.
CleanPowerSF is the not-for-profit electricity program of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Some neighborhoods have already have been changed from PGE-generated power to CleanPower. (You get a chance to opt out). Whether or not yours has, you can sign up for CleanPower (43% renewables) or SuperGreen (100% renewable sources) right now!
The Green Committee would like to encourage you to do that, and will help you! What a step we can take to reducing greenhouse gasses!
If you have already gone SuperGreen--that’s terrific! Please inform us with a message to green@uusf.org.
